The Enduring Significance of John Rawls

By MARTHA NUSSBAUM

John Rawls, who turned 80 this year, is the most distinguished
moral and political philosopher of our age. Initially isolated in a
world of Anglo-American philosophy preoccupied with questions of
logic and language, Rawls played a major role in reviving an
interest in the substantive questions of political philosophy. What
makes a society just? How is social justice connected to an
individual's pursuit of the good life? By now, the influence of his
ideas and his impact as a teacher, first at